Ranald Macdonald
Ranald Macdonald is Emeritus Professor at Sheffield Hallam where he was Professor of Academic Development and Head of Strategic Development in the Learning and Teaching Institute until taking early retirement in 2009. He is now a freelance higher education consultant and works as a Senior Associate: Professional Development for the Higher Education Academy’s Subject Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics (C-SAP), running early career and other professional development activities.
Ranald is a previous Co-Chair and a current Senior Fellowship holder of the UK’s Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA), having established and been the inaugural Chair of its Scholarship, Research and Evaluation Committee. He was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2005 and a Visiting Fellowship to the University of Otago, New Zealand, in 2007.
Ranald’s main consultancy, workshop, research and scholarly interests are in the areas of:
- academic/educational development
- introducing greater variety into our practices as academic developers and teachers
- assessment and plagiarism
- problem and enquiry-based learning
- curriculum design and delivery, including the development of departmental/institutional learning and teaching strategies
- professional development for the leadership, management and evaluation of educational change.
Ranald was Co-Director of Sheffield Hallam’s Centre for Promoting Learner Autonomy from 2005-7 and his earlier academic background was in Economics and Business Studies as a teacher, module and course leader, and Head of Department. Since 1994 he has worked as an academic developer and is comfortable working with all academic areas at course, departmental and institutional level and has done so extensively in the UK and in other countries as well as being an external examiner/adviser for many post-graduate certificates in learning and teaching/academic practice in higher education.
